WASHINGTON – While Sen. Mitch McConnell is traveling Kentucky portraying himself as a friend of coal, his wife, former Labor Secretary Elaine Chao, sits on the board of Bloomberg Philanthrophies, an organization that is supporting an anti-coal campaign.

McConnell, a Republican seeking his sixth term in one of the nation's most-watched Senate races, also has been a staunch defender of tobacco interests. But, again, Chao is advising the Bloomberg group even as it backs a global battle against tobacco.

Furthermore, Bloomberg Philanthrophies is the creation of former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an independent billionaire who as an individual has given $2.5 million to the super PAC aligned with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

That committee, the Senate Majority PAC, is working to keep McConnell and the Republicans from taking over the Senate and has spent more than $2 million against the Kentuckian so far.

Bloomberg, of course, is also a major gun control activist who has donated millions of dollars to gun safety PACs.

Chao's links to Bloomberg Philanthrophies was first reported by Yahoo News, even as McConnell was campaigning in Kentucky coal country, trying to tie his opponent, Alison Lundergan Grimes, to President Barack Obama and his so-called "war on coal."

The connection between McConnell's wife and Bloomberg's organization undoubtedly will be fodder for Grimes and the Democrats, political analysts said.

"This is an automatic attack ad" against McConnell, said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics. "It writes itself. ... It undercuts his argument about being the champion for coal."

Chao's Bloomberg tie will be controversial, but "I certainly don't see it as a game-changer," said Joseph Gershtenson, a political scientist at Eastern Kentucky University.

"She's one of multiple board members. … She has limited say," he said.

The United Mine Workers of America, however, jumped on the revelation and questioned why Chao would be allied with a group whose goals are antithetical to coal country. The union has endorsed Grimes.

"One has to wonder just where Sen. McConnell is with respect to this, and whether he supports his wife's continued service on the board of this organization, one whose actions have already cost thousands of coal miners in Kentucky and elsewhere their jobs," union chief Cecil Roberts said in a statement.

McConnell, the Senate minority leader, is the top recipient of coal industry campaign contributions, which total more than $179,000, according to Federal Election Commission data compiled by the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics.

The senator also has been a staunch defender over the years of tobacco, an important crop in Kentucky. He voted against the law that gave the federal government power to regulate tobacco products and currently ranks second in campaign donations from the tobacco industry, according to FEC figures.

McConnell spokesman Don Stewart told Yahoo News that Bloomberg Philanthropies' decisions on the grants to the anti-coal campaign were made before Chao joined its board.

"She played no role in the decision to grant them," Stewart said. "Sen. McConnell has a longstanding, principled record of defending coal families and jobs. Decisions made by a board before Sec. Chao ever joined do not change that and as the Obama administration will tell you, he hasn't let up an iota in his defense of Kentucky coal families and jobs."

McConnell campaign spokeswoman Allison Moore added in an e-mail that "if Alison Lundergan ‎Grimes thinks that it's appropriate to attack family in this campaign, she better think through that very carefully."

The Grimes campaign, however, declined to comment on the story.

Sabato said Chao is "fair game" because she has been featured in McConnell ads and because she is a former labor secretary.

Moore did not respond to a Courier-Journal question about whether Chao would leave the Bloomberg board.

The Bloomberg Family Foundation, as the philanthropic organization is formally known, has committed $50 million over four years to a campaign against coal.

The foundation also has committed $600 million to what it calls the "Bloomberg Initiative to Reduce Tobacco Use."

Gershtenson said the spending against coal and tobacco is "a lot of money ... from a Kentucky perspective — yikes!"

Still, he said, it is Chao serving on the Bloomberg board, not the senator.

The UMWA's Roberts said McConnell's wife "is of course free to take a position on whatever board of directors she chooses."

"But one would think that, as the spouse of a Kentucky politician, she would choose more carefully when it comes to taking a leadership role in an organization that had recently invested in the destruction of the American coal industry and the jobs of American coal miners," Roberts said.

On a Bloomberg website entitled "Beyond Coal," the group states that it is partnered with the Sierra Club's Beyond Coal campaign "to move the country from coal to clean energy."

"The coal industry has had a tight grip on U.S. energy policy for decades, with devastating consequences for both public health and our environment," the Bloomberg site says. "A reliance on energy from coal is also keeping solar and wind energy out of the market, delaying the move toward cleaner energy sources."

The goal is to "retire one-third of the nation's aging coal fleet by 2020," according to Bloomberg Philanthropies.

McConnell has attacked Obama and the Environmental Protection Agency for efforts to reduce global warming by reducing pollution limits from coal-fired power plants. Kentucky is almost entirely dependent on coal for electricity generation. The state also is the nation's third-largest producer of coal, behind Wyoming and West Virginia.

McConnell and Grimes both say new carbon emissions standards proposed by the EPA would hurt Kentucky.
Joseph Gerth, The Courier-Journal

Chao joined Bloomberg Philanthropies in early 2012, according to a news release on the group's website.

Chao was paid $9,400 in 2012, according to its annual filing with the state of New York. Its report for 2013 is not yet filed. McConnell's 2013 financial disclosure report shows only ranges of payments to his wife. For the Bloomberg group, the payment was "over $1,000" in 2013, the report shows.

Chao, who was labor secretary under President George W. Bush, also received a salary in 2013 from the Heritage Foundation, a Washington-based conservative think tank. She also listed fees and/or deferred compensation from News America Inc.; Delta Air Lines; Dole Food Co. Inc.; Protective Life Insurance Co.; and Wells Fargo and Co. In each case, the fees were listed under a category of "over $1,000."

Reporter James R. Carroll can be reached at (703) 854-8945. Follow him on Twitter @JRCarrollCJ.